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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

21–30 of 338 posts

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#21
Have to jump through a few links to get to the 'protest' part.

> Protest now by contacting the responsible EU Commissioners! Experience shows that a phone call is more effective than e-mails or letters. Officially, the planned obligation for messaging and chat control is called “legislation to effectively tackle child sexual abuse online”.

> If an office tries to redirect you to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs (Directorate-General for Home Affairs), point out that all EU Commissioners vote on draft legislation and can raise concerns at an early stage.

    * EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ms Johansson (lead responsible): Tel. +32-229-50170, E-Mail cab-johansson-contact@ec.europa.eu
    * EU Commission President Ms von der Leyen: Tel. +32-229-56070, E-Mail ec-president-vdl@ec.europa.eu
    * Executive Vice President for a Europe for the Digital Age, Ms Vestager: tTel. +32-229-55136, E-Mail margrethe-vestager-contact@ec.europa.eu
    * EU Internal Market Commissioner Mr Breton, Tel. +32-229-90200, E-Mail cab-breton-contact@ec.europa.eu
    * Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Ms Jourova: Tel. +32-229-55144, E-Mail cab-jourova-contact@ec.europa.eu
    * Vice President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Mr. Schinas: Tel. +32-229-60524, E-Mail cab-schinas-contact@ec.europa.eu
    * Justice Commissioner Mr Reynders, Tel. +32-229-50900, E-Mail cab-reynders-contact@ec.europa.eu
[from https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...]

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#23
post #5

Ah the classic "But think of the children" appeal... Anybody know how this will impact proton?

I don't think Switzerland is subject to this but I could be wrong. I setup my own mail and xmpp server to be safe. I recommend others to do the same. Yunohost.org makes it easy.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -significantly raise the penalty for sexual child abuse I'm sure some dark comic (Boyle, Gervais?) made a joke along these lines, but presumably the problem with this tack is that you end up with more dead children? Biology, consensus-morality-abiding or otherwise, is a hard thing to ignore and little befearing the meagre laws of man in those that suffer from it. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I don't see 'st…

It was Louis CK. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Fy8zVp63w

Ah, 'Thank you'! Yes that's the skit I remembered, and by golly, as fucked up an idea as it is, he's entirely right.

"I don't know what to do with that information. I don't have way to apply that to anything that's helpful", indeed.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#25
post #16
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

I never understand this apparent motive of "elected officials getting power hungry". How would this legislation make the people in the EU Commission more powerful? Am I just lacking imagination?

I mean, intercepting private business communications about say, factory openings or closings, would put the people with that information in a position to make large amounts of money by buying or selling property in those areas. There are dozens of similar examples that don't require much imagination to envisage. Blackmail material on politicians, insider knowledge on energy transactions and plans, advance warning on populist protests against EU policies, etc.

Just look at the history of any mass surveillance state to see how that works out in practice. The East German STASI is a relevant example, and there are others one could think of as well. Recommended watching: "The Lives of Others".

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#26
These tyrants have to be stopped.

A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in the world has huge problems with sex trafficking, rape and prostitution. And you guessed it, state officials are involved. All these cameras and this online surveillance didn’t make a dent to the social rot that China is suffering from. In fact, this moral (/s) state is running concentration camps, and is justifying it.

Mass-surveillance is a form of power-transfer from the majority of people to a select few. When you, as individuals, as families, as communities, as the people lack power, you’ll be less able to prevent your children from falling prey to government officials. Instead of facing a weak outcast, you’re facing an individual that’s linked to your government.

> This spying attack on our private messages and photos by error-prone algorithms is a giant step towards a Chinese-style surveillance state.

Well said. I’d like to add that even if the system was free from errors, it’s terrible.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#27
post #16
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

I never understand this apparent motive of "elected officials getting power hungry". How would this legislation make the people in the EU Commission more powerful? Am I just lacking imagination?

> Am I just lacking imagination?

Yes.

The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites.

Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European...

It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa...

All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walking on in.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#28
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

I assume some corporations are lobbying for it. So they can harvest more data, and maybe sell the tech that will do this. In the past some stuff like this has either gotten through of been attempted, and its usually in some trade deal with the US. So apparently the US really wants this all over the world.

They could also be lobbying for it simply because it creates more barriers to competition. If this passes you'd never be able to make another chat/IM/etc. startup. Compliance would be crazy complex or expensive or both.

Complex or difficult to comply with regulations are a regressive tax on businesses, impacting smaller or new businesses far more than large ones. The cost of compliance drops with scale.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needlessly cynical. Human organizations of all kinds have problems, including governments. If you don't believe that government can ever function in a manner intended by the people it nominally represents, then everything is hopeless, since we (the vast majority of people) were also screwed over without representative government. I don't agree that one needs to conclude this. You can believe in government at the same…

> since we (the vast majority of people) were also screwed over without representative government. Without government we at least had choice. I think you're needlessly cynical. Humans can organize themselves quite well when they have maximum choice as individuals. The robber barons of the early nineteenth century were bolstered by governments--not hindered. Governments have always been corrupt.

> Without government we at least had choice.

I don't consider "give me your stuff or I beat you" a choice.

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